The tiger charity that wasn\’t; banks brace for Volcker

This morning\’s banking roundup: Getting ready for Volcker. Getting ready for lawsuits. Getting ready for new college grads who would rather just work at hedge funds, apparently. And the tiger charity that wasn\’t.

Volckerific: SNL Financial is out with a list of the banks most heavily dependent on trading revenue — in other words, those with the most to lose as they prepare for the Volcker Rule to become the law of the land. Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
was unsurprisingly at the top, according to SNL, getting 62% of its revenue from trading as of the third quarter. Behind Goldman was Morgan Stanley
, First Horizon National Corp.
in Memphis, Tenn., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
and Citigroup Inc.

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Which brings us nicely to a story by our colleagues at the Wall Street Journal about how Goldman is maybe, sort of, perhaps, finally ditching riskier activities to try to make itself a more boring and stable bank. And Citigroup, as a result of the Volcker Rule, just announced that it is loosening ties to a private-equity unit called Metalmark Capital.

The lawsuit machine: The Justice Department is preparing to sue Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp.\’s
Merrill Lynch unit, accusing them of misrepresenting mortgage securities they sold in the run-up to the financial crisis, according to Reuters. Sound familiar? This is similar to the investigation that led to the Justice Department\’s blockbuster $13 billion settlement against J.P. Morgan last month.

Help really, really wanted: J.P. Morgan takes a cue from Goldman and says it wants junior investment bankers to take it easy on the weekends.

Save the tigers. No, really: This is just too good not to include. The wife of a former Deutsche Bank
executive says he used their tiger conservation charity to hide assets, while she spent the charity\’s money on furniture and expensive dinners.

–Christina Rexrode

Christina Rexrode covers banking for MarketWatch in New York. Follow her on Twitter @chris_rexrode. Follow The Tell on Twitter @thetellblog.

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